New Ideas for Old

Liberal Democrats

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The policy agreement from the new British coalition government is a seven-page summary, put together under 11 headings, in private and under pressure. Inevitably, it’s a bit thin in places – often more a statement of shared principles than specific intentions. So what does it mean for older people? And what can we infer from what has been lifted – and left out – from the Conservatives’ and Liberal Democrats’ respective election manifestos about how the new government has resolved to address pensions, tax, retirement and care?

So Britain finally has a new government, after five days in which the news has mainly been that some men were going in or out of a building. The policy positions of the first coalition since the second world war, hammered out in those meetings, will emerge over the coming days and weeks, but it seems likely that the Conservatives’ central proposal for domestic policy, the big society, will remain a significant part of the rhetoric.

Before the election, David Cameron described the big society as his party’s guiding philosophy. The Liberal Democrats share with their new Conservative colleagues a suspicion of the big state – which the big society is meant to render unnecessary – making this a relatively easy matter on which to collaborate. It is not yet clear, perhaps even to the Conservatives, quite what their big society amounts to. But one thing is plain: people over 50 will be crucial to its success. This could be, for older people, a big moment.